Russia’s offensive to break the front line in Kupiansk forces Ukraine to evacuate 37 towns

The escalation of the Russian offensive to break the front line defended by the Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk, in the east of the country, is bearing fruit. The Ukrainian authorities ordered this Thursday the evacuation of 37 towns in this district of the Kharkiv province -130,000 inhabitants before the start of the invasion-, after weeks of intense bombardments against military and civilian positions. The order affects towns located in the north and east of Kupiansk, on both sides of the Oskil River. Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkov Regional Military Administration, has stated that the evacuation could affect some 11,000 people, including 600 children. A figure, however, that may be much lower due to the abandonment of their homes by hundreds of people during the latest Russian onslaught. Kupiansk has been under kyiv control since last September.

“Taking into account the difficult security situation and the increase in shelling, they have the possibility of being evacuated to a safer place,” the district authorities told the population through the Telegram social network. Anna Koresh, 36, a resident of the town of Kivsharivka, on the outskirts of the city of Kupiansk (named after the evicted district), said in a conversation with Agence France Presse that she was preparing to flee with her children, but that her husband would stay to care for his elderly mother. “It’s hard to leave them behind,” Koresh said.

The Ukrainian military command, which has reported in recent days on the pressure that Russian troops were exerting on Kupiansk, admitted on Thursday that it will reorder its units to contain the offensive. “The situation is difficult, but it is under control,” he said. General Oleksandr Sirski, in charge of the Ukrainian ground forces, pointed out that this position is the main objective of the current offensive commanded from Moscow in the region and that, for this, eight Storm-Z assault units have been deployed. This vanguard division would be the one that Russia is currently using to replace Wagner’s men ―among its components there would also be ex-inmates―.

As reported by Sirski, the battle is so fierce that some positions on this front have changed hands several times in recent days. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar has also acknowledged the Russian escalation over Kupiansk. “The enemy is trying to recapture the positions lost there last fall,” Maliar has said in statements collected by Kyiv Post. The evacuated inhabitants would be located in the city of Kharkov, some 90 kilometers to the west, from where they can be evacuated to other, safer regions. Maliar, in an interview with GuardianHe said that further to the southeast, the Ukrainian army has recaptured territory in Bakhmut and Russian soldiers can no longer go outside the city. kyiv has focused its counteroffensive in recent weeks on hitting the invader in this town, as well as on gaining advances towards Melitópol and Berdiansk.

The Russian Ministry of Defense, for its part, celebrated this Thursday an improvement of its offensive positions in this area of ​​Kharkov, after several weeks of attacks. “The Russians are trying to impose themselves and penetrate our defenses,” the spokesman for the Ukrainian army in the eastern sector of the front lamented on Telegram.

Far from the fighting, a missile hit a civilian area in the city of Zaporizhia again on Thursday. He did it against the Reikartz hotel in this town. At least 14 people were injured, including a three-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy. In Orijiv, also in the Zaporizhia region, another Russian attack had left two dead and seven wounded at dawn. The secretary of the Zaporizhia city council, Anatoli Kurtev, assured that Russia had also attacked a residential area of ​​the city in this case.

Poland increases deployment on the border with Belarus

The Polish authorities reported this Thursday that the additional military deployment on the border with Belarus will finally include 10,000 troops, whose objective will be, fundamentally, to support the Border Guard and carry out “deterrence” tasks. “We are moving the army closer to the Belarusian border to intimidate the aggressor, so that he does not dare to attack us. Around 10,000 soldiers will be on the border: 4,000 will directly support the Border Guard and 6,000 will be in reserve,” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told Polskie Radio.

His words come after the commander of the Border Guard, Tomasz Praga, asked the Ministry of Defense to transfer at least a thousand additional soldiers to the border to add to the 2,000 already in the area. The Polish government seeks to deal with a possible new wave of migration from Belarus in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So far this year there have been more than 19,000 illegal border crossing attempts, 4,000 of them in the month of July. Last week, Poland denounced the incursion of two Belarusian helicopters into its airspace. For its part, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense described Poland’s accusations as “preposterous” and assured that they “once again justify the accumulation of forces and equipment near the Belarusian border.”

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